Vintage Crafts- Upcycled Men’s Flannel Shirt

Hello! Today I am going to share one of my favorite retro clothing revamps with you guys, a repurposed men’s flannel. I love upcycling clothing and admit that most of my wardrobe started out as something thrifted or vintage. This particular idea I snagged out of a vintage 1962 Better Homes and Gardens Christmas Ideas Magazine in the handmade gifts section. They had taken a men’s denim workshirt and shortened it for a gal and then added some great embroidery. Usually when I do a vintage craft I update it a bit to make it more modern, but I think that this was just perfect so I copied it pretty much like the original!

Here’s What You Need:

Men’s Button Up Flannel
Embroidery Floss
Hand Embroidery Needle
Scissors
Ruler
Sewing Machine and Coordinating Thread
Buttons (optional)

Here’s my how-to:

The first thing I did was decide where I wanted my shirt hem to hit. I marked the spot. Then I added an inch and a half for hemming. I laid my shirt flat and measured the equal distance down from the armpit to where the bottom of the hem would be and I marked where to cut off the shirt bottom. Then I cut the shirt bottom off. After that I started stitching my design with the embroidery floss.I used a cross stitch around the edges and inside the flat felled seams just like the original. Then I stitched the design around the buttonholes. I used a crazy daisy like stitch and stitched it like you would to make the petals but made them more “u” shaped than teardrop shaped.

After I finished embroidering the shirt, it was ready to hem. I pressed the bottom edge under by about a half an inch, then pressed under again by a little over half an inch. Then I stitched the hem closed on the sewing machine close to the edge of the folded hem. I cut off the buttons that were on the shirt and added new buttons that I liked to finish it off.

This is one of my absolute favorite shirts and it is perfect for fall! I found that it is really easy to turn an oversized men’s shirt into an oversized boyfriend style womens shirt just by hemming the bottom. I just roll the sleeves up but you could cut the sleeves and hem them too if you wanted to. The embroidery took me most of an evening, so it was a little time consuming, but I thought it was definitely worth it! I hope you gals will give it a try sometime too! I’ll be back soon with more DIY fun.

Xoxo,

Ashlee